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Jacob Lopez

Rays Designate Niko Goodrum, Select Edwin Uceta

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The Rays made several roster moves today, as relayed by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on X. They selected right-hander Edwin Uceta to the roster while optioning left-hander Jacob Lopez and designated infielder/outfielder Niko Goodrum for assignment in corresponding moves. The club also activated outfielder Josh Lowe from the injured list and optioned infielder Curtis Mead.

Goodrum, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Twins this winter but was flipped to the Rays just before Opening Day. Tampa was about to start the year with a number of position players on the injured list, including Lowe, Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda and Jonny DeLuca. Since the season started, Brandon Lowe also went on the IL, further thinning their position player depth.

But Goodrum wasn’t able to take advantage of the opportunity, though it was quite limited. He received 18 plate appearances over nine games at the big league level, hitting .188/.235 /.188 in those. He’s spent more time on optional assignment in Triple-A, where he has performed much better. He stepped to the plate 45 times over nine games for the Bulls and hit .316/.422/.605, but that wasn’t enough to hold onto his roster spot.

The Rays will now have a week to trade Goodrum or pass him through waivers. He was a solid regular for the Tigers back in 2018 and 2019 but his production tailed off in the following three seasons. He hit .247/.318/.427 over 2018 and 2019 with 24 steals, but he then hit .196/.271/.334 over the following three campaigns.

There’s been some encouraging results in the past year-plus. He hit .280/.448/.440 for Boston’s Triple-A club last year before going to Korea, where he hit .295/.373/.387 for the KBO’s Lotte Giants. As mentioned, the results weren’t there at the big league so far this year but the Triple-A production was good. Since he still can be optioned to the minors, perhaps he will intrigue a rival club who would like to option him to the minors.

The Rays leaned heavily on their bullpen yesterday as starter Ryan Pepiot was hit by a comebacker and had to depart after just two innings. The club then used six relievers to cover eight innings, as the game eventually went 10 frames. The Rays only have two pitchers that are on the 40-man and on optional assignment rather than the injured list: Jacob Waguespack and Yoniel Curet. The latter has yet to even reach Double-A. The former tossed five innings on Thursday and may be needed to cover Pepiot’s spot in the rotation, depending on how he feels in the coming days.

All that led the club to go for a non-roster option in Uceta. He signed a minor league deal with the club back in December and has been pitching in Triple-A. He has thrown 18 innings over 10 outings with an unimpressive earned run average of 7.00, but with better peripherals. His 23.9% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate are both close to par, with a .370 batting average on balls in play and 55.6% strand rate pushing extra runs across the board.

He has 40 1/3 innings of previous major league experience with a 5.80 ERA, striking out 23.3% of opponents against an 11.9% walk rate. He is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors. But he has just over a year of service time and could be cheaply retained for future seasons if he manages to hold his roster spot through the end of the year.

The return of Lowe should also provide a boost to the club’s offense. He hit .292/.335/.500 for the club last year while also stealing 32 bases, but he suffered an oblique injury in Spring Training and started the season on the injured list. He was set to return just over a week ago before some hamstring tightness delayed him, but he will now finally make his 2024 debut.

With the various injuries in the club’s position player mix, Mead got plenty of playing time in the past few weeks but couldn’t capitalize on it. He hit .218/.269/.276 in his 94 plate appearances, only hitting one home run and only drawing walks at a 4.3% clip. He’ll now head down to the farm and try to get back on track.

Rays Select Erasmo Ramirez

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The Rays announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Erasmo Ramirez.  In corresponding moves, left-hander Jacob Lopez was optioned to Triple-A, and infielder Taylor Walls was shifted from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list.

Today’s move kicks off what is officially Ramirez’s third stint with the Rays.  The righty first pitched for Tampa during the 2015-17 seasons, before moving on to pitch for five other teams in a journeyman’s trek around the majors until landing again in Tampa Bay last summer.  After the Nationals released Ramirez in June, he spent only a few days on the open market before inking a minor league contract with the Rays, and he ended up posting a 6.48 ERA over 33 1/3 innings and 15 appearances at the MLB level.  He elected free agency at season’s end, but Ramirez then returned to the Rays on another minors deal in December.

Ramirez has a 4.37 ERA over 828 1/3 career innings, working as a starter, reliever, swingman, and bulk pitcher (behind an opener) over his 12 Major League seasons.  There have been plenty of ups and downs over this long career, and Ramirez’s 3.76 ERA over 254 frames with Tampa in 2015-16 essentially represents his peak.  The right-hander then struggled to a 4.85 ERA over 221 innings from 2017-21 until finding some stability working out of Washington’s bullpen, and posting an impressive 2.92 ERA in 86 1/3 innings in 2022.  Advanced metrics weren’t as impressed with Ramirez’s revival, however, and the regression wave hit when he posted a 6.41 ERA in 60 1/3 combined innings last season with the Nats and Rays.

Given how the Rays frequently cycle through pitchers at the back end of their bullpen, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Ramirez designated for assignment relatively soon, despite the extra machinations to add him to the 40-man roster.  Ramirez has the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, though if that situation comes, he could also choose to remain in a familiar situation in Tampa Bay rather than test the market once again.  In the meantime, Ramirez (who turns 34 on May 2) will likely at least get some innings under his belt to officially mark his 13th MLB campaign, and give the Rays a known quantity for covering innings in the relief corps.

Walls had hip surgery back in October, and since his 60-day IL stint is backdated to the start of his initial 10-day placement, the shortstop won’t be making his 2024 debut until late May at the very earliest.  Rays manager Kevin Cash told MLB.com and other media last week that Walls hadn’t had any setbacks in his recovery, but was “just not going as quick as maybe we had originally anticipated,” creating some doubt as to when exactly Walls will be back in action.  The shortstop will still need to take part in an extended Spring Training ramp-up and then a minor league rehab assignment, so even a late May return might be optimistic given the lack of updates on Walls to date.

Rays Select Jacob Waguespack, Option Jacob Lopez

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The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Jacob Waguespack, the team announced Friday. Left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who’s recovering from Tommy John surgery performed last April, was moved to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Tampa Bay also optioned southpaw Jacob Lopez to Triple-A Durham and reassigned non-roster pitchers Brendan McKay and Michael Gomez to minor league camp.

Waguespack’s addition to the 40-man roster and the decision to option Lopez both lend clarity to the Rays’ rotation outlook as they navigate a pectoral injury to starter Taj Bradley. Waguespack can still technically be optioned to Triple-A, but today’s move seems to put him squarely in the running for a spot on the Opening Day roster. The 30-year-old righty has spent the past two seasons with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, primarily working out of the bullpen, and also pitched in the majors with the Blue Jays in 2019-20.

The 95 2/3 innings Waguespack pitched with the Jays represent his entire body of big league work. He worked to a 4.38 ERA with an 18.8% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate through 78 innings (13 starts, three relief appearances) as a rookie in 2019. The right-hander’s sophomore season saw him torched for 16 runs in 17 2/3 innings (8.15 ERA), though that was in no small part due to a bloated .410 average on balls in play. Waguespack’s strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates were mostly in line with his 2019 levels, and his spike in BABIP came despite a notable drop in his opponents’ average exit velocity and hard-hit rate.

When Bradley went down, each of Waguespack, Lopez and non-roster righty Naoyuki Uwasawa were listed as potential rotation options, alongside swingmen Tyler Alexander and Chris Devenski. Tampa Bay also signed Jake Odorizzi to a minor league deal just this morning, but he’ll need to build up and could require some minor league work to begin the season before he becomes a more viable option in early or mid-April. Even if the plan is to plug Odorizzi into the big league rotation as early as possible, Waguespack could make a couple early starts and, if he shows well, move into the bullpen or else head down to Durham to work out of the rotation there and serve as continued depth.

Rays Select Jacob Lopez

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The Rays announced they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Jacob Lopez. It’s the first major league call for the 25-year-old southpaw. Tampa Bay had openings on the active and 40-man rosters after placing Wander Franco on the restricted list.

A 26th round pick by the Giants in 2018, Lopez spent just one year in the San Francisco system. At the 2019 deadline, the Giants shipped Lopez to the Rays for outfielder Joe McCarthy, who was in Triple-A at the time. The 6’4″ hurler has never gotten much attention in perennially deep Rays’ systems, but he has quietly put together a strong minor league resume. Lopez posted a 2.51 ERA in 15 appearances between High-A and Double-A two seasons ago.

2022 proved a lost season, as Lopez spent the whole year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He went unselected in last winter’s Rule 5 draft. Assigned back to Double-A to begin this season, Lopez picked up where he left off. He posted a 2.57 ERA through 28 innings to earn a bump to Triple-A Durham towards the end of May. Over 13 starts for the Bulls, he has allowed 2.72 earned runs per nine in spite of a hitter-friendly Triple-A environment.

Between the two affiliates, Lopez carries a 2.67 ERA across 84 1/3 frames. Working almost exclusively as a starter, he has fanned an excellent 32% of opposing hitters. His 12% walk rate is high, though it’s not uncommon to see pitchers struggle with command in the immediate aftermath of a Tommy John rehab. Lopez had walked just 7.4% of batters faced two seasons ago.

It’s unclear whether Tampa Bay will deploy him as a starter or break him into the big leagues out of the bullpen. He’ll offer a multi-inning option for skipper Kevin Cash in some respect. The Rays are in the seventh of nine straight game days, though they’ll have an off day on Thursday after their upcoming three-game set (ironically, against the Giants’ organization which originally drafted Lopez).

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